Monday, April 25, 2016

Another commission, a result of previous iterations of a little ditty sung every morning at the preschool. This time I actually thought to document my process and thought I'd share it here, missteps and all.

Last year I created the first "Rinka Ronka" illumination as a donation to the auction fundraiser...

...and then one of the moms asked me to create a piece showing the melody as well as lyrics. Even though (or perhaps because) I have a background in music, I was a bit stumped at the prospect of incorporating the notation into a cohesive piece of engrossing. I sent her two concept sketches (the second one borrowing a border from Angelo Rassu)...

...and she preferred the first, specifically that the lines of music were straight across.

I started working on that design.

I did some gilding with gold and palladium, and used different colors for the notes, but...meh. It just wasn't working for me, so I set it aside.

Eventually, I came across this image of a William Morris tapestry design.

William Morris tapestry

I'm a big fan, and was intrigued by the idea of working on dark paper. I did some sample swatches in gouache and colored pencil on ivy Canson Mi-Teintes paper, and loved the way the colors popped on the deep green background, the gouache (right-hand column) more so than the colored pencil.

William Morris tapestry design

I worked up a sketch making the words larger and the musical notation smaller than the previous design. I planted one of Mr. Morris' fantasy flowering bushes on each side (minus the monster acanthus) and strung the musical staves between them. I tried to compensate for the 'weight' of the treble clefs, time signature, and larger letters on the left by adding more flora on the right, some of it encroaching on the music to fill space in lines with shorter text.

I scanned the sketch into Photoshop and cleaned it up a little. I printed it onto Borden & Riley #90 Vellum Sheer Trace, covered the back in white chalk, placed it chalk-side down on the green paper, and began to transfer the design by tracing over it.

It was working fine, though a little messy (not to mention arduous). I had decided to pick up some white Saral transfer paper to use instead (the graphite color didn't show up well enough) when it hit me--I wonder if I could print right onto the green paper? And the answer was yes.

Ready to go! First the Instacoll, three coats to compensate for a little bit of roughness in the paper (even though I used the smoother side)...

...then the 23k gold leaf...

...then the pale green foundation for the leaves, to set them off from the deep color of the paper.

With a little inspiration from a walk in the neighborhood...

...I started in on the flowers and branches, having lined in the music staff with a Pentel Slicci .08 gold pen.

The melody was next, and then the text. The leaves, branches and lettering were outlined in black ink.

I wrote the melody first with Sumi, but it wasn't showing up very well, so I went back in with a black Sakura glaze pen, which is both glossy and raised. I think notes kind of look like birds on wires!

I felt the flourishes across the bottom weren't carrying their weight in the design, so I went over them with Kölner Miniatum Ink and applied gold leaf.

All of the text and flourishes were shadow-lined with white pencil...

...which I then decided I didn't like, and erased the white pencil on all but the first line...

...which I then decided I didn't like either! So it ended up the way you see it at the top of the page (for now!). I made a decision not to tool the gold (again, for now!) because I didn't think it needed it, and well, you have to stop somewhere.

This project was a delight to work on, and I'm a little sad to see it end. Thanks for following along!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Lisa Summers of Flutterleigh sent me this photo of her booth at Food Fare 2016, a charity boutique event. I designed this logo for her, having been requested to incorporate a butterfly and a fleur-de-lis. Originally about 6"across, it's fun to see it at this size!

Friday, March 18, 2016

It's auction season again and I was asked to donate a piece to the school where I worked for 25 years, until I 'retired' last June. If you follow this blog you may remember that last year, the curse was broken and not only did my three little pieces raise some serious money, there were people who were willing to match the highest bids so I did two more. This one is essentially the same design as last year, with different colors.

This is the song the children (and their parents!) sing each morning as they file into the classroom. A choir of angels!

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Last weekend I did a new wall to welcome seven brave souls who came to learn about lettering with chalk at the "Chalk Lettering Dust-Up". It got good and dusty around here as we worked both on black foam board and on chalkboard-painted masonite boards. In the morning we transferred pre-made sketches to the boards. The short phrases were mostly from Patti Digh's book Four Word Self Help. Everyone did a great job, and each board had a very distinctive look!

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About Me

As a professional lettering artist, I relish the variety of projects, venues, styles and media I experience every day. From commercial chalkboards, to illuminated manuscripts, to events providing onsite personalization with calligraphy and engraving, I enjoy bringing beauty to the world, one letter at a time!
"Mil Plumas" is Spanish for "a thousand pens" or "a thousand quills", and is also a nod to my late grandmother who was a writer named, oddly enough, Mildred Pluma.
I am a member of IAMPETH, San Francisco Friends of Calligraphy, Society for Calligraphy of Southern California and Washington Calligraphers Guild.